The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-26
WOMEN AND THEIR WAYS.
They Lack the Poetry of Motion-They
Knox Not Hwy TO Walk

WAX. 1AC 4hDAliltAA AaEp
exists. The average woman is possessed of
feet and exacts from them a certain amount
of practical service, but the chances are she
does not walk. Walking is graceful exer-
else, and the average well-dressed woman is
awkward The better dressed she is-as
motions of dress go-the more awkward
she becomes. To attribute much of the
poetry of motion TO the gentler sex is
one of the politest as it IS one of the most
palpable fictions OF the code of civilized
Society.
Two young girls PASSED down a leafy
avenue OF the park in front OF me this morn
ing. They We're pretty girls, summers,
dluiinutive specimen of the old chappie
called them, Ticking off a late dandelion
bloom with his cane. and taking the rosebud
out Of his mouth as he said so. He WIS
justified They were summers, as New York
girls whose efforts in that line are better
directed and more apt to be successful than
those of other girls, are wont to be. Bright
eyes, flowing hair, a bewilderment of colors,
aldacious, and at the same time perfectly
harmonious and in keeping with the June
luxuriance about them, a swing and jingle
OF bead fringes and clanking chatelaines set
them off in the New York girls own high
spirited yiyacious style.
They were discussing summer plans One
was going to Newport in week and the
other was alternately congratulated because
her father was going TO take her on long
yachting voyage, and condoled with be-
cause she was likely to get no tennis this
summer. Yachting and tennis That
sounded like out-of-door living, and yet
neither of them could walk The great
bulges of drapery on their backs swayed
with every step IRON side to side aggrayat-
ing jerlxy motion that was of the same
sort if not as pronounced as the painful for
ward bitches of man ON stills. Ii seemed
to the observer as if. instead of having any
free command of the muscles that produce
a given motion, the whole body was turned
perforce into a locomotive machine that
piyoting somewhere In the chest brought
one side forward and then the other
with an altogether effort that was
not especially noticeable in a slow saunter
but because positively distressing at quick
pace.
The critical anatomist Of raiment would
. hare called them victims of three incubuses,
the tailor gown, the hustle and beads. The
tailor gown. one cOrsetiere assures me, has
reduced the size Of the average New York
girls waist two inches in as many years.
The tailor gown almost never weighs less
than ten pounds and il runs from that up to
mare than 90 The girl who has worn it is
prepared to put on a panoply of jet that
viii make the delicately beaded net that
looks so cool and airy that you might think
fairy could dance in it weigh nearer forty
pounds. She has grown so accustomed to
dress burdens that her lace dresses for the
seashore have steels enough in their bodices
and lead weights enough in the silk slips
under their skirts to make them far from
the summerish things they look. With the
body muscles strapped down and loose
and swaying hustle mountain tied upon the
back, carrying more weight than would tire
a hearty man, it is small wonder a woman
can't walk She can't use her body because
she has made pack mule of it. The spring
ing step with some vitality and rebonnd in
it that is the true walking gait, is almost in
compatible with her attire.
Women, it is TO be presumed, suit them
selves, and men, fortunately, are not criti-
CAL are indeed incapable of Judging of
woman's dress or her walk dispassionately
and so the present state of things may be
right enough after all. A man ought to be
tolerant. When a woman is spending the
greater part Of her life in studying how to
dress herself it is reasonable TO assume that
she knows more about her own needs-and
consequently that to be able to walk is not
one of them-than the exoteric critic who
cynically views results when the cold
hearted horse car conductor half way down
the block bids her hurry up. And man is
tolerant. A great majority of masculine
humanity having a tender side for every
reasonably good-looking woman, and being
accustomed TO see the most of their angelic
acquaintance dress and walk in particular
fashion. conclude against the evidence of
their senses that both dress and walk are
graceful and becoming, which, as before
said, all things considered, is most fortu-
nate state of affairs
THE TRUE INwARDNEsS
Of the tale that has gone the rounds of the
press about Miss Catherine Wolfe's 81 ,000,-
Goo, supposed to have been appropriated, in
intention, to the projected Protestant
cathedral, but lost to that end through in
ability to frame a codicil TO her will in the
last feeble moments, was given me by Bishop
Potter in the cool, scholastic-looking offices
of the diocese the other day.
miss Wolfe was greatly interested" he
said, ''in the plan to build in this city
cathedral that should be to us what West
minister is to England-an embodiment of
the highest religious feeling and a receptacle
for the memorials of our honored dead She
would have made the project one of the
main objects of her latter days and would
have taken large share of the financial
responsibility directly upon herself. She
was ready to identify herself with the move
ment and to devote her energies to it. It
was something that she had planned to work
for in her lifetime rather than bequeath
money TO, and unfortunately she died
before the project, as revived-it ORR
ginated in the days of my father-came to
head"
Ii will be strange if the cathedral does
not enlist the sympathies and attract to it
self some of the superfious wealth of New
York's rich women. Denominational preju-
dices are popularity supposed TO soften less
easily among women than men, but on the
other hand the religious sentiment that de
lights in the twilight that filters through
rich glass on dim aisles, and mementoes of
holy things and men revered and passed
away is attributed more frequently to women
and would incline them favorably to
Bishop Potter's plans
Ex-SEcRETARY MANNING
is not altogether a well-loolziug man, in spite
of his undoubted Improvement, since his re-
turn from England. He is slightly lame
and cannot wholly control the movements
Of one arm. Mrs Manning, however, has
greatly profited by her trip, and the change
in her appearance from the tired-loolking
woman wearied by the strain and yet more
by the anxiety of the last few months at
Washington TO the CHEEKY figure in trim
shopping costumes that walked rapidly
down the corridors of the Fifth Avenue
Hotel the other day was a marked one. Mrs
Manning is a fine-loolSing woman with n
serene and composed manner and a reliable
look about her as if she were always as good
as her word, if not little better, too. She
til.